The present invention relates generally to the field of data processing systems, and more particularly to management of memory devices.
Within a networked computing environment, such as a data center, some portions of the environment include computing systems that include various virtualization technologies. Network-attached storage (NAS) is mass storage attached to a computer which another computer can access at file level over a local area network, a private wide area network, or in the case of online file storage, over the Internet. NAS is commonly associated with the Network file system and Common Internet file system/server message block protocols.
Object storage (also known as object-based storage) is a computer data storage architecture that manages data as objects, as opposed to other storage architectures like file systems which manage data as a file hierarchy and block storage which manages data as blocks within sectors and tracks. Each object typically includes the data itself, a variable amount of metadata, and a globally unique identifier. Object storage can be implemented at multiple levels, including the device level (object storage device), the system level, and the interface level. In each case, object storage seeks to enable capabilities not addressed by other storage architectures, like interfaces that can be directly programmable by the application, a namespace that can span multiple instances of physical hardware, and data management functions like data replication and data distribution at object-level granularity.
Object-storage systems allow retention of massive amounts of unstructured data. Object storage is used for purposes, such as storing photos, songs, or files in online collaboration services or social media.